1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for manufacturing a fluid dynamic bearing, a manufacturing method using the apparatus, a fluid dynamic bearing manufactured by the manufacturing method, and a rotating device provided with the fluid dynamic bearing and, in particular, to a technique of filling a lubricant into the fluid dynamic bearing.
2. Description of the Related Art
As devices for recording and reproducing digital data, magnetic disk drive devices such as hard disk drives, and optical disk drive devices such as CD (Compact Disk) devices and DVD (Digital Versatile Disk) devices, are known. These devices are provided with a motor for rotating a disk. Recently, fluid dynamic bearings have been used in rotating devices such as motors in many cases. It is necessary to fill a lubricant into a narrow space in order to manufacture a fluid dynamic bearing.
As a method of filling lubricant into a fluid dynamic bearing, etc., various methods are proposed, as represented by Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-005170, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-098393, and Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-273908.
In order to fill a lubricant into the fluid dynamic bearing, it is necessary to repeat a depressurization operation and a repressurization operation in a work area where the lubricant dynamic bearing is to be filled with the lubricant. It takes a long time to depressurize the work area to a vacuum of a predetermined degree, decreasing the work efficiency in manufacturing the fluid dynamic bearing.